AMERICAN POETS

EDWIN MARKHAM

VACHEL LINDSAY

JOAQUIN MILLER

ALAN SEEGER

EDWIN MARKHAM [Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are used by permission of the publishers, Doubleday, Page & Co., and are taken from the following works: The Shoes of Happiness and The Man with the Hoe.]

A STUDY OF HAPPINESS IN POVERTY, IN SERVICE, IN LOWLINESS; AND A BIT OF "SCRIPT" FOR THE JOURNEY OF LIFE

Edwin Markham is the David of modern poetry. He is biblical in the simplicity of his style. He, like the poet of old, tended sheep on "The Suisün Hills," and of it he speaks:

"Long, long ago I was a shepherd boy, My young heart touched with wonder and wild joy."

THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS.

None less than William Dean Howells has said of him, "Excepting always my dear Whitcomb Riley, Edwin Markham is the first of the Americans." "The greatest poet of the century" is the estimate of Ella Wheeler Wilcox; and Francis Grierson adds, "Edwin Markham is one of the greatest poets of the age, and the greatest poet of democracy." Dr. David G. Downey makes his estimate of the poet, in his book, Modern Poets and Christian Teaching, a little broader and deeper in the two phrases: "He is not more poet than prophet," and, "He is the poet of humanity—of man in relations." And of them all I feel that the latter estimate is best put, for Edwin Markham is more than "the poet of democracy"; he is the poet of all humanity, down on the earth where humanity lives. And that Dr. Downey was right in calling him "prophet" one needs but to read some lines from "The Man with the Hoe" in the light of the Russian revolution, and proof is made:

"O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? How will you ever straighten up this shape?

* * * * *

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings— When those who shaped him to the thing he is— When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries?"

THE MAN WITH THE HOE.

"How will it be with kingdoms and with kings?" the "Man with the Hoe" is answering in Russia this star-lit night and sun-illumined day. Yes, Markham is prophet as well as poet. And to this humble writer's way of reading poetry there were never four lines for pure poetry more beautifully writ, neither across the seas, nor here at home, neither east nor west, than these four from "Virgilia":

"Forget it not till the crowns are crumbled And the swords of the kings are rent with rust; Forget it not till the hills lie humbled, And the springs of the seas run dust." The Shoes of Happiness.

Prophetic? Yes! But ah, the music of it! Here rings and here sings David the shepherd; the sweet lute, the harp, the wind in the trees, the surge of the ocean-reef. It is music of a high and holy kind.

Which reminds me that I am to treat in this chapter on Markham only of what he has written since 1906, the preceding period, best known through his "Man with the Hoe," having been discussed by Dr. Downey in the book heretofore mentioned. I have the joy-task in these brief lines to bring to you Markham's "The Shoes of Happiness," which seems to me the strongest book he has written, not forgetting, either, "The Hoe" book, as he himself calls it.

If you have the privilege of personal friendship with this "Father Poet," he will write for you somewhere, some time, some place, these four favorite lines, with a twinkle in his eyes that is half boy and half sage, but all love, which quatrain he calls "Outwitted":

"He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!" The Shoes of Happiness.

And with these four lines he introduces the new book of poems, "The Shoes of Happiness."

THE HAPPINESS OF POVERTY

One wonders where "The Shoes of Happiness" may be found, and the answer is forthcoming in the first of "Six Stories," when he finds that the Sultan Mahmoud is near unto death, and that there is just one thing that will make him well, and that is that he may wear the shoes of a perfectly happy man:

"For only by this can you break the ban: You must wear the shoes of a happy man." The Shoes of Happiness.

The Vizier was sent to find these shoes or lose his own head:

"Go forth, Vizier, when the dawn is red, And bring me the shoes, or send instead, By the hand of this trusted slave, your head!" The Shoes of Happiness.

He first found a crowd of idle rich going forth for a day's outing among the fields and flowers, a "swarm of the folk of high degree," and thought to find the shoes here, but, alas! he found that

"In each glad heart was a wistful cry; Behind each joy was a secret sigh." The Shoes of Happiness.

He turned from the rich and sought the homes of the poor, and the Father in the home of the poor said unto him:

"Ah, Vizier, I have seven sweet joys, but I have one fear: The dread of to-morrow ever is here!" The Shoes of Happiness.

A Poet was found weaving a song of happiness, and the Vizier thought that surely here would he find the man with the "happy shoes," but the Poet cried:

"No," sighed the poet; "you do me wrong, For sorrow is ever the nest of song." The Shoes of Happiness.

Everywhere that he wandered in search he found some touch of unhappiness. He tried Youth and Age, but,

"The young were restless that youth should stay, The old were sad that it went away."

The Shoes of Happiness.

He thought to find the shoes on the feet of the Lover, but heard the Lover say:

"Yes, yes; but love is a tower of fears, A joy half torment, a heaven half tears!"

The Shoes of Happiness.

He had heard of a wise old Sage, who had been to Mecca, and sought him only to hear, "I am not glad; I am only wise." At last he heard of a man from far Algiers. With hurried steps he sought in vain. At last one day he found a man lying in a field:

"'Ho,' cried Halil, 'I am seeking one Whose days are all in a brightness run.'— 'Then I am he, for I have no lands, Nor have any gold to crook my hands. Favor, nor fortune, nor fame have I, And I only ask for a road and a sky— These, and a pipe of the willow-tree To whisper the music out of me.'

"Out into the field the vizier ran. 'Allah-il-Allah! but you are the man; Your shoes then, quick, for the great sultan— Quick, and all fortunes are yours to choose!' 'Yes, mighty Vizier,… but I have no shoes!'"

The Shoes of Happiness.

THE HAPPINESS OF LOWLINESS

And just as this opening poem teaches the happiness of poverty, so the next, "The Juggler of Touraine," teaches the happiness of lowliness.

Poor Barnabas, just a common juggler, when winter came, because he had been spending the summer amusing people, had no place to go, and a sympathetic monk took him into the monastery to live. Barnabas was happy for a time; but after a while, as he saw everybody else worshiping the Beautiful Mother with lute and brush, viol, drum, talent, and prayer, he began to feel that his talents were worthless:

"But I, poor Barnabas, nothing can I, But drone in the sun as a drowsy fly."

The Shoes of Happiness.

Then came a thought that leaped like flame over his being, and an hour later the monks found him, kneeling in the sacred altar place. What he was doing chagrined them. They were shocked just as many people of this day, to see a man worshiping with a different bend of the knee than that to which they had been accustomed. How prone we are to judge those who do not worship just as we have worshiped! This seems such a common human weakness that Alfred Noyes, with a touch of kindly indignation, speaks a word in "The Forest of Wild Thyme" that may be interjected just here in this study of Barnabas the juggler, whom the monks indignantly found worshiping the Virgin by juggling his colored balls in the air, and speaking thus as he juggled:

"'Lady,' he cried again, 'look, I entreat: I worship with fingers, and body, and feet!"

"And they heard him cry at Our Lady's shrine: 'All that I am, Madame, all is thine! Again I come with spangle and ball To lay at your altar my little, my all!'"

The Shoes of Happiness.

But the poor old monks were indignant. They, and some others of more modern days, had never caught the real gist of the "Judge not" of the New Testament; nor had they read Noyes:

"How foolish, then, you will agree, Are those who think that all must see The world alike, or those who scorn Another, who perchance, was born Where—in a different dream from theirs— What they called sins to him are prayers! We cannot judge; we cannot know; All things mingle, all things flow; There's only one thing constant here— Love—that untranscended sphere: Love, that while all ages run Holds the wheeling worlds in one; Love, that, as your sages tell, Soars to heaven and sinks to hell."

The Shoes of Happiness.

No, we have no right to judge one another. The monks condemned poor Barnabas because he was not worshiping as they had always worshiped. They too forgot the real spirit of worship as they condemned him:

"'Nothing like this do the rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place at Our Lady's feet!'"

The Shoes of Happiness.

However, then, as now, men are not the final judges:

"But why do the elders suddenly quake, Their eyes a-stare and their knees a-shake? Down from the rafters arching high, Her blowing mantle blue with the sky— Lightly down from the dark descends The Lady of Beauty and lightly bends Over Barnabas stretched in the altar place, And wipes the dew from his shining face; Then touching his hair with a look of light, Passes again from the mortal sight. An odor of lilies hallows the air, And sounds as of harpings are everywhere.

"'Ah,' cry the elders, beating the breast, 'So the lowly deed is the lofty test! And whatever is done from the heart to Him Is done from the height of the Seraphim!'"

The Shoes of Happiness.

"HOW THE GREAT GUEST CAME"

A STUDY OF COMPLETE HAPPINESS IN SERVICE

I have never found a poem which more truly pictures the Christ and how he comes to human beings than this one of Markham's. Conrad the cobbler had a dream, when he had grown old, that the Master would come "His guest to be." He arose at dawn on that day of great expectations, decorated his simple shop with boughs of green and waited:

"His friends went home; and his face grew still As he watched for the shadow across the sill; He lived all the moments o'er and o'er, When the Lord should enter the lowly door— The knock, the call, the latch pulled up, The lighted face, the offered cup. He would wash the feet where the spikes had been; He would kiss the hands where the nails went in; And then at last he would sit with him And break the bread as the day grew dim."

The Shoes of Happiness.

But the Master did not come. Instead came a beggar and the cobbler gave him shoes; instead came an old crone with a heavy load of faggots. He gave her a lift with her load and some of the food that he had prepared for the Christ when he should come. Finally a little child came, crying along the streets, lost. He pitied the child and left his shop to take it to its mother; such was his great heart of love. He hurried back that he might not miss the Great Guest when he came. But the Great Guest did not come. As the evening came and the shadows were falling through the window of his shop, more and more the truth, with all its weight of sadness, bore in upon him, that the dream was not to come true; that he had made a mistake; that Christ was not to come to his humble shop. His heart was broken and he cried out in his disappointment:

"Why is it, Lord, that your feet delay? Did you forget that this was the day?"

The Shoes of Happiness.

Then what sweeter scene in all the lines of the poetry of the world than this that follows? Where is Christ more wonderfully and simply summed up; his spirit of love, and care?

"Then soft in the silence a voice he heard: 'Lift up your heart, for I kept my word. Three times I came to your friendly door; Three times my shadow was on your floor. I was the beggar with bruised feet; I was the woman you gave to eat; I was the child on the homeless street!'"

The Shoes of Happiness.

One is reminded here of Masefield's "The Everlasting Mercy," wherein he speaks as Markham speaks about the child:

"And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street; And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom Come; And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to earth."

The Shoes of Happiness.

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," another great-hearted Poet once said; and these words Markham, in "How the Great Guest Came," has made real.

"SCRIPT FOR THE JOURNEY"

"Script for the Journey" is all that it claims to be. Markham is not doing what Lindsay did. Lindsay started out on a long journey with only his poems for money. He meant to make his way buying his food with a verse. And he did that very thing. But Markham had a different idea, an idea that all of us need script for that larger journey, script that is not money and script that does not buy mere material food, but food for the soul. He means it to be script that will help us along the hard way. And he who has this script is rich indeed, in his inner life.

"THE PLACE OF PEACE"

One would pay much for peace at any time, but especially when one on the journey of life is wearied unto death with sin, and bickering, and trouble and hurt and pain. Life holds so much heartache and heartbreak. Markham has herein the answer:

"At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky, And flinging the clouds and the towers by, Is a place of central calm; So here in the roar of mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of God's palm."

The Shoes of Happiness.

And when we learn to put our business ventures there as Abbey has his Sir Galahad do in the Vigil panel of "The Search for the Holy Grail," in Boston Library; and when we have learned to put our homes, and our children, and our souls "In the hollow of God's palm," there will be peace on the journey of life. Yes, that is good script.

"ANCHORED TO THE INFINITE"

What a lesson the poet brings us from the great swinging bridge at Niagara, as he tells of the tiny thread that was flown from a kite from shore to shore; and then a larger string, and then a heavy cord, and then a rope, and finally the great cable, and the mighty bridge. And this he applies to life!

"So we may send our little timid thought Across the void out to God's reaching hands—Send out our love and faith to thread the deep— Thought after thought until the little cord Has greatened to a chain no chance can break, And—we are anchored to the Infinite."

The Shoes of Happiness.

Who does not need to know how simple a thing will lead to infinite anchorage? Who does not need to know that just the tiny threads of love and faith will draw greater cords and greater, stronger ropes until at last the chasm between man and God on the journey is bridged, and we may be anchored to him forever. This indeed is good script for the journey of life Godward.

"THERE IS NO TIME FOR HATE"

The world is full of hate these days. War-mad Germany produced "The Hymn of Hate," the lowest song that ever was written in the history of the world. It seems impossible that a censorship so strict could ever let such a mass of mire out to the world. But when one reads this Markham poem, he somehow feels that life is so big, and yet so brief, that even in war we are all brother-men and, as the opening lines say,

"There is no time for hate, O wasteful friend: Put hate away until the ages end. Have you an ancient wound? Forget the wrong. Out in my West, a forest loud with song Towers high and green over a field of snow, Over a glacier buried far below."

The Shoes of Happiness.

And if all the world would learn the meaning of this great phrase, "There is no time for hate," the world would happier be. Good script for the journey? The best there is, is to know "There is no time for hate."